Joe Johnston
Thought of Quitting Jurassic Park 3(by
digitalmediafx.com) Joe Johnston is being candid in interviews
regarding the disjointed production of Jurassic Park 3
and the fact that even well into production, no one had an idea
how to end the movie (thus the reason for the reported weak ending).
Joe Johnston told Sci-Fi Wire the following about wanting to quit
the production:

"I thought
about it a few times... And there were actually phone calls where
I called my agent and I said, 'Look, you have to get me off this
movie. I don't care what it takes. I don't care if it's the end
of my career, you have to get me off tomorrow'...It's hard enough
to make a movie when you've got a script that you really love
and it's been polished to death. But to start over, and start
shooting a $100 million movie without a script, you want to blow
your brains out."

Johnston and
Universal are taking some heat for proceeding in the production
of Jurassic Park 3 without a finished script. The original
script for the movie was thrown out just weeks before production
began, resulting in the movie being made while it was being filmed.
This is a far cry from Johnston's more organized productions like
last year's critically acclaimed October Sky movie and
the adventure Jumanji.

Jurassic
Park 3 opens domestically in theaters tomorrow. It is only
90-minutes in length.

The Mummy
Returns Tops $400 Million Worldwide(by digitalmediafx.com) Universal's The Mummy Returns
has topped the $200 million mark domestically and overseas to
bring its worldwide total to $400 million. The movie opened in
the #1 slot in every country it played in. It also had the highest
opening of any movie ever in Korea, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Russia,
Taiwan and Venezuela.

"We have
always had faith that this exciting and action-packed movie would
captivate audiences worldwide," said Marc Shmuger, vice chairman
of Universal Pictures, "and we are very pleased that our
partners around the world have brought the film so successfully
to its audience. This fantastic success is also a testament to
the strength of 'The Mummy' franchise which continues to satisfy
audiences around the world."

The Mummy
Returns is only the second movie this year to top $200 million
domestically. The first was Shrek, which is still playing
in theaters with a total of $247.3 million domestically to date.